As a proper introduction, I'll give my example in proper Japanese:

Ohayo gozaimasu. Watashi wa Banneru desu. Hajimemashite douzo yoroshiku.

Translated verbatim, this means:
Good morning. I am Banner (Family names are used rather than personal ones). This is the first time we meet, treat me well.

I will now pull this apart to explain all the parts to the grammar of it.

Ohayo - This is the standard greeting for the morning, 'konnichi wa' and 'konban wa' are the greetings for the afternoon and the evening respectively.

Gozaimasu - this is a term added to a sentence to enhance the respect it gives (although I haven't been taught the literal meaning) it is simply more proper to use this..

Watashi wa Banneru desu - this is the basic sentence structure for Japanese.
Watashi - meaning I, me, myself - topic of the sentence
wa - a pronoun type of word that relates the topic to the verb
Banneru - Romaji (English spelling of the Japanese version of my last name) - this is the direct object of the sentence
desu - meaning is, to be, am - the verb of the sentence

Hajimemashite - Literally translated as "this is the first time we meet" but it is used like pleased to meet you in Japanese.
Douzo Yoroshiku - typically used in formal greetings, this means "treat me well" and is not really covered in typical translations of this greeting.

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You may have noticed that my last name is not Banneru, but rather Banner. So, why add the u to the end?

The answer is simple:
The Japanese use only one consonant sound by itself.
While those who speak English and any European languages all use the sounds b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, and z by themselves, Japanese is only taught the basic vowels a, i u, e, and o.

All of their consonant sounds are paired with vowels except one
They do use the consonant sound n.

So when you write my name in Japanese, it would be 4 characters.
Ba|n|ne|ru

The same goes for words that the Japanese have borrowed (however they are sometimes said lazily):
Hamburger for example - ha|n|ba|-|ga|- rather than ha|mu|ba|ru|ga|ru

The dashes I use there are actually the symbol for the extended vowel sound in foreign words rather than using more vowel characters to show this. In fact, foreign words have their own alphabet - Katakana.

Katakana can be covered in the next lesson.

so, until then you can use this online Java applet to learn about it.
click ->Kana Sensei

Life: 09/03/08 | Posted By: Krustyknuckles | 9 comments